From The Heart
by Lee Etscovitz, Ed.D.
Sometimes, in a reflective moment, I think back on the direction-changing decisions I have made in my life, especially in terms of my gender journey. Ironically, for all that those decisions have turned out to be significant, most of them were not consciously made in terms of any gender change, yet without them I would most likely not have progressed to where I am now. I was simply following a feeling, a feeling I could not always verbalize and which often went against what seemed like a more rational and sensible thing I should be doing.
For example, my decision to seek a divorce from my first spouse after fourteen years of marriage was, in retrospect, the beginning of my journey into the unknown. I did not know what was wrong with me. I was simply very unhappy, and so, as responsibly as I could, I sought a divorce. I was seen by spouse and children and family and friends as being irresponsible, but I was responding to an inner unrest that I could not fathom but which was destroying me from' within. And so I felt I had to take a step in the direction of some unknown resolution.
Another example of my going against what seemed sensible but which was something I simply felt I had to do was when I responded to an advertisement of the Renaissance Education Association with its open invitation to people who crossdress. I went to a meeting and have never been the same since. Again, I did what felt right at the time, even though I risked losing a second spouse whom I continue to love dearly and to whom I am fortunately still married.
In both of these cases, and in several other instances during my life, I finally listened to my heart. Rationality is not necessarily to be excluded from the exercise of choice and from the implementation of impactful decisions. But in each phase of my gender journey, I finally let my heart tell me what to do, a basic step which the following poem, called "I Listened," describes:
I listened to my heart today
and heard the beat
beneath the beat
that keeps me on my way.
The sound was faint,
the rhythm dim,
but something there I heard,
and as I listened carefully
the sound became a word.
"Accept," it said,
"accept yourself
for all that you are worth."
Storms and rainbows suddenly flashed
across my inner sky,
as if my heart were giving birth
to dreams that would not die.
"How can this be?"
I asked at last.
"Am I to be this bold,
to think that after all these years
to dream is not too old?"
The storms went on,
the rainbows gleamed,
my silent heart must speak,
for if I failed to listen now
my soul would soon grow weak.
And so I listened to my heart
and heard the beat
we often cheat
by keeping it apart,
till in despair
not even prayer
can place it on a chart.
The only record of this beat
has been within my soul.
To hear its sound
on solid ground
remains my lifelong goal.
My heart has never lied to me. It has always told me the truth, in this case my gender truth, so long as I have listened to it. My not hearing the truth or, worse yet, hearing it and ignoring it, perhaps out of fear, has always resulted in a kind of living death. Or to put it another way, in the course of my own existence, a living death, regardless of its duration, has always followed a "heart" attack for which, in the medical sense, there has never been any corrective surgery, not even a transplant. The only remedy for such an attack has always come from within my heart itself, one beat, one step at a time, until my heart and my sense of self have become one. Then, and only then, when I have finally listened to own heart, have I, as a gender-troubled person, had a chance to live fully. And then, of course, my struggle has really begun. But it is a heartfelt struggle, for it is faced with a strength the gender truth requires, a strength which comes from the heart.
Want to comment? Send email to Dr. Etscovitz at hmdm@voicenet.com.
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